A command line tool for keeping track of what you’re doing and tracking what you’ve done.

A pre-release version of doing 1.0.8 is available by running gem install doing --pre. The updated documentation is on GitHub.

What and why

doing is a basic CLI for adding and listing “what was I doing” reminders in a TaskPaper-formatted text file. It allows for multiple sections/categories and flexible output formatting.

While I’m working, I have hourly reminders to record what I’m working on, and I try to remember to punch in quick notes if I’m unexpectedly called away from a project. I can do this just by typing doing now tracking down the CG bug.

If there’s something I want to look at later but doesn’t need to be added to a task list or tracker, I can type doing later check out the pinboard bookmarks from macdrifter. When I get back to my computer — or just need a refresher after a distraction — I can type doing last to see what the last thing on my plate was. I can also type doing recent (or just doing) to get a list of the last few entries. doing today gives me everything since midnight for the current day, making it easy to see what I’ve accomplished over a sleepless night.

Side note: I actually use the library behind this utility as part of another script that mirrors entries in Day One that have the tag “wwid.” I can use the hourly writing reminders and enter my stuff in the quick entry popup. Someday I’ll get around to cleaning that up and putting it out there.

Installation

$ [sudo] gem install doing

To install the latest version, use --pre:

$ [sudo] gem install --pre doing

Only use sudo if your environment requires it. If you’re using the system Ruby on a Mac, for example, it will likely be necessary. If gem install doing fails, then run sudo gem install doing and provide your administrator password.

Run doing config to open your ~/.doingrc file in the editor defined in the $EDITOR environment variable. Set up your doing_file right away (where you want entries to be stored), and cover the rest after you’ve read the docs.

The “doing” file

The file that stores all of your entries is generated the first time you add an entry with doing now (or doing later). By default the file is created in “~/what_was_i_doing.md”, but this can be modified in the config file.

The format of the “doing” file is TaskPaper-compatible. You can edit it by hand at any time (in TaskPaper or any text editor), but it uses a specific format for parsing, so be sure to maintain the dates and pipe characters.

Notes are anything in the list without a leading hyphen and date. They belong to the entry directly before them, and they should be indented one level beyond the parent item. When using the now and later commands on the command line, you can start the entry with a quote and hit return, then type the note and close the quote. Anything after the first line will be turned into a TaskPaper-compatible note for the task and can be displayed in templates using %note.

Notes can be prevented from ever appearing in output with the global option --no-notes: doing --no-notes show all.

The config file is stored in “~/.doingrc”, and is created on the first run.

Doing file location

The one thing you’ll probably want to adjust is the file that the notes are stored in. That’s the doing_file key:

doing_file: /Users/username/Dropbox/nvALT2.2/?? What was I doing.md

I keep mine in my nvALT folder for quick access and syncing between machines. If desired, you can give it a .taskpaper extension to make it more recognizable to other applications. (If you do that in nvALT, make sure to add taskpaper as a recognized extension in preferences).

“Current actions” section

You can rename the section that holds your current tasks. By default, this is “Currently,” but if you have some other bright idea, feel free:

current_section: Currently

Default editors

The setting editor_app only applies to Mac OS X users. It’s the default application that the command doing open will open your WWID file in. If this is blank, it will be opened by whatever the system default is, or you can use -a app_name or -b bundle_id to override.

In the case of the doing now -e command, your $EDITOR environment variable will be used to complete the entry text and notes. Set it in your ~/.bash_profile or whatever is appropriate for your system:

export EDITOR="mate -w"

The only requirements are that your editor be launchable from the command line and able to “wait.” In the case of Sublime Text and TextMate, just use -w like this: export EDITOR="subl -w".

Templates

The config also contains templates for various command outputs. Include placeholders by placing a % before the keyword. The available tokens are:

%title: the “what was I doing” entry line

%date: the date based on the template’s “date_format” setting

%shortdate: a custom date formatter that removes the day/month/year from the entry if they match the current day/month/year

%note: Any note in the entry will be included here, a newline and tabs are automatically added.

$ doing recent 3
4:30am > Made my `console` script smarter...
Checks first argument to see if it's a file, if it is, that's the log
Else, it checks the first argument for a ".log" suffix and does a search in the user
application logs with `find` for it.
Otherwise, system.log.
I also made an awesome Cope wrapper for it...
12:00pm > Working on `doing` again.
12:45pm > I think this thing (doing) is ready to document and distribute
$

You can get pretty clever and include line breaks and other formatting inside of double quotes. If you want multiline templates, just use “\n” in the template line and after the next run it will be rewritten as proper YAML automatically.

$ doing recent 3
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
4:30am
> Made my `console` script smarter...
Checks first argument to see if it's a file, if it is, that's the log
Else, it checks the first argument for a ".log" suffix and does a search in the user application
logs with `find` for it.
Otherwise, system.log.
I also made an awesome Cope wrapper for it...
_______________________________________________________________________
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
12:00pm
> Working on `doing` again.
_______________________________________________________________________
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
12:45pm
> I think this thing (doing) is ready to document and distribute
_______________________________________________________________________
$

Custom views

You can create your own “views” in the ~/.doingrc file and view them with doing view view_name. Just add a section like this:

The “section” key is the default section to pull entries from. Count and section can be overridden at runtime with the -c and -s flags. Setting section to All will combine all sections in the output.

You can add new sections with doing add_section section_name. You can also create them on the fly by using the -s section_name flag when running doing now. For example, doing now -s Misc just a random side note would create the “just a random side note” entry in a new section called “Misc,” if Misc didn’t already exist.

The tags and tags_bool keys allow you to specify tags that the view is filtered by. You can list multiple tags separated by spaces, and then use tags_bool to specify “ALL,” “ANY,” or “NONE” to determine how it handles the multiple tags.

The order key defines the sort order of the output. This is applied after the tasks are retrieved and cut off at the maximum number specified in count.

Regarding colors, you can use them to create very nice displays if you’re outputting to a color terminal. Example:

Usage

Global options:

--[no-]notes - Output notes if included in the template (default: enabled)
--version - Display the program version
--help - Show help message and usage summary

Commands:

help - Shows a list of commands and global options
help [command] - Shows help for any command (`doing help now`)

Adding entries:

now - Add an entry
later - Add an item to the Later section
done - Add a completed item with @done(date). No argument finishes last entry.
meanwhile - Finish any @meanwhile tasks and optionally create a new one

The doing now command can accept -s section_name to send the new entry straight to a non-default section. It also accepts --back AMOUNT to let you specify a start date in the past using “natural language.” For example, doing now --back 25m ENTRY or doing now --back "yesterday 3:30pm" ENTRY.

You can finish the last unfinished task when starting a new one using doing now with the -f switch. It will look for the last task not marked @done and add the @done tag with the start time of the new task (either the current time or what you specified with --back).

doing done is used to add an entry that you’ve already completed. Like now, you can specify a section with -s section_name. You can also skip straight to Archive with -a.

doing done can also backdate entries using natural language with --back 15m or --back "3/15 3pm". That will modify the starting timestamp of the entry. You can also use --took 1h20m or --took 1:20 to set the finish date based on a “natural language” time interval. If --took is used without --back, then the start date is adjusted (--took interval is subtracted) so that the completion date is the current time.

When used with doing done, --back and --took allow time intervals to be accurately counted when entering items after the fact. --took is also available for the doing finish command, but cannot be used in conjunction with --back. (In finish they both set the end date, and neither has priority. --back allows specific days/times, --took uses time intervals.)

All of these commands accept a -e argument. This opens your command line editor as defined in the environment variable $EDITOR. Add your entry, save the temp file and close it, and the new entry will be added. Anything after the first line is included as a note on the entry.

doing meanwhile is a special command for creating and finishing tasks that may have other entries come before they’re complete. When you create an entry with doing meanwhile [entry text], it will automatically complete the last @meanwhile item (dated @done tag) and add the @meanwhile tag to the new item. This allows time tracking on a more general basis, and still lets you keep track of the smaller things you do while working on an overarching project. The meanwhile command accepts --back [time] and will backdate the @done tag and start date of the new task at the same time. Running meanwhile with no arguments will simply complete the last @meanwhile task. See doing help meanwhile for more options.

Modifying entries:

finish - Mark last X entries as @done
tag - Tag last entry
note - Add a note to the last entry

doing finish by itself is the same as doing done by itself. It adds @done(timestamp) to the last entry. It also accepts a numeric argument to complete X number of tasks back in history. Add -a to also archive the affected entries.

doing finish also provides an --auto flag, which you can use to set the end time of any entry to 1 minute before the start time of the next. Running a command such as doing finish --auto 10 will go through the last 10 entries and sequentially update any without a @done tag with one set to the time just before the next entry in the list.

As mentioned above, finish also accepts --back "2 hours" (sets the finish date from time now minus interval) or --took 30m (sets the finish date to time started plus interval) so you can accurately add times to completed tasks, even if you don’t do it in the moment.

tag adds one or more tags to the last entry, or specify a count with -c X. Tags are specified as basic arguments, separated by spaces. For example:

doing tag -c 3 client cancelled

… will mark the last three entries as “@client @cancelled.” Add -r as a switch to remove the listed tags instead.

note lets you append a note to the last entry. You can specify a section to grab the last entry from with -s section_name. -e will open your $EDITOR for typing the note, but you can also just include it on the command line after any flags. You can also pipe a note in on STDIN (echo "fun stuff"|doing note). If you don’t use the -r switch, new notes will be appended to the existing notes, and using the -e switch will let you edit and add to an existing note. The -r switch will remove/replace a note; if there’s new note text passed when using the -r switch, it will replace any existing note. If the -r switch is used alone, any existing note will be removed.

You can also add notes at the time of entry by using the -n or --note flag with doing now, doing later, or doing done. If you pass text to any of the creation commands which has multiple lines, everything after the first line break will become the note.

Displaying entries:

doing show on its own will list all entries in the “Currently” section. Add a section name as an argument to display that section instead. Use “all” to display all entries from all sections.

You can filter the show command by tags. Simply list them after the section name (or “all”). The boolean defaults to “ANY,” meaning any entry that contains any of the listed tags will be shown. You can use -b ALL or -b NONE to change the filtering behavior: doing show all done cancelled -b NONE will show all tasks from all sections that do not have either “@done” or “@cancelled” tags.

Use -c X to limit the displayed results. Combine it with -a newest or -a oldest to choose which chronological end it trims from. You can also set the sort order of the output with -s asc or -s desc.

The show command can also show the time spent on a task if it has a @done(date) tag with the -t option. This requires that you include a %interval token in template -> default in the config. You can also include @start(date) tags, which override the timestamp when calculating the intervals.

If you have a use for it, you can use --csv on the show or view commands to output the results as a comma-separated CSV to STDOUT. Redirect to a file to save it: doing show all done --csv > ~/Desktop/done.csv.

doing yesterday is great for stand-ups, thanks to Sean Collins for that. Note that you can show yesterday’s activity from an alternate section by using the section name as an argument (e.g. doing yesterday archive).

Views

Display any of the custom views you make in ~/.doingrc with the view command. Use doing views to get a list of available views. Any time a section or view is specified on the command line, fuzzy matching will be used to find the closest match. Thus, lat will match Later, etc..

Sections

sections - List sections
choose - Select a section to display from a menu
add_section - Add a new section to the "doing" file

Utilities

archive - Move entries between sections
open - Open the "doing" file in an editor (OS X)
config - Edit the default configuration

Archiving

The archive command will move entries from one section (default: Currently) to another section (default: Archive).

doing archive on its own will move all but the most recent 5 entries from currently into the archive.

doing archive other_section will archive from “other_section” to Archive.

doing archive other_section -t alternate will move from “other_section” to “alternate.” You can use the -k flag on any of these to change the number of items to leave behind. To move everything, use -k 0.

You can also use tags to archive. You define the section first, and anything following it is treated as tags. If your first argument starts with “@”, it will assume all sections and assume any following arguments are tags.

By default tag archiving uses an “AND” boolean, meaning all the tags listed must exist on the entry for it to be moved. You can change this behavior with -b OR or -b NONE (“ALL” and “ANY” also work).

Example: Archive all Currently items for @client that are marked @done

doing archive @client @done

Extras

Bash completion

See the file doing.completion.bash in the git repository for full bash completion. Thanks to fcrespo82 for getting it started.

Zsh completion

See the file doing.completion.zsh in the git repository for zsh completion.

Launchbar

The previous incarnation of doing had a LaunchBar action that I used frequently. The Day One popup has mostly replaced that for me, but only because I have a system that connects it to my WWID file. However, I’ve still found a place for adding WWID entries without including them in my journal, and LaunchBar is the perfect way to do that for me.

All you need is an AppleScript saved at “~/Library/Application Support/LaunchBar/Actions/Doing.scpt”. It should look like this:

on handle_string(message)
-- get the input from LaunchBar
if message is "?" then
-- if the input is just "?" display the last three entries
set _doing to do shell script "/usr/bin/doing recent 3"
tell application "LaunchBar" to display in large type _doing
else
-- otherwise, create a new entry using the input
do shell script "/usr/bin/doing now " & quoted form of message
end if
end handle_string

Troubleshooting

Errors after “Successfully installed…”

…it may just be documentation related. If running doing works, you can ignore them. If not, try running the install command again with --no-document:

$ gem install --no-document doing

Command not found

If running doing after a successful install gives you a “command not found” error, then your gem path isn’t in your $PATH, meaning the system can’t find it. To locate the gem and link it into your path, you can try this:

cd $GEM_PATH/bin
ln -s doing /usr/local/bin/

Then try running doing and see if it works.

Encoding errors

Support

I’m not making any money on doing, and I don’t plan to spend a lot of time fixing errors on an array of operating systems and platforms I don’t even have access to. You’ll probably have to solve some things on your own.

That said, you can get support from other users (and occasionally me) on GitHub. If you run into a replicatable bug in your environment, please post an issue and include your platform, OS version, and the result of ruby -v, along with a copy/paste of the error message. To get a more verbose error message, try running GLI_DEBUG=true doing [...] for a full trace.

Please try not to email me directly about GitHub projects.

Developer notes

I’ll try to document some of the code structure as I flesh it out. I’m currently working on adding a CLI reporting structure and logging methods, as well as santizing and standardizing all the flags and switches for consistency. Feel free to poke around, I’ll try to add more comments in the future (and retroactively).

Changelog

1.0.7 / 2014-09-23

fix for -v option

Slightly fuzzier searching in the grep command

cleaner exits, only_timed key for view configs

making the note command append new notes better, and load existing notes in the editor if -e is called

handle multiple tag input in ‘show’ tag filter

Global tag operations, better reporting

1.0.4pre

Improved HTML output

–only_timed option for view/show commands that only outputs items with elapsed timers (interval between start and done dates)

add seconds for timed items in CSV output, run –only_timed before chopping off –count #